


In the Quiet of the Night

by stars-and-wolves (stars_and_wolves)



Series: Wolfstar Oneshots [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief suicidal thoughts, Cuddling, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Forehead Kisses, Get Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV: Sirius Black, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sharing a Bed, internalized homophobia (just a dab), way angstier at the start than I was planning for it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27091318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_and_wolves/pseuds/stars-and-wolves
Summary: Sirius would never stop showing Remus affection, even if it killed him. Which it just might, given the way Remus’s eyes would often flutter shut when Sirius stroked his hair or how he always, always, lent into Sirius’s touch. It was almost unbearable. Almost.***Sirius and Remus share a bed in secret a lot and Sirius is fine with it, really.
Relationships: Sirius Black & James Potter, Sirius Black & Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Wolfstar Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988635
Comments: 18
Kudos: 262





	In the Quiet of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written anything for Wolfstar before and I haven’t written for fun in years (thanks depression) so I hope you all like this. I was aiming for about 3k words with this story but it got a little bit away from me. I’m really happy with how it turned out, enjoy :)
> 
> I don't approve of J.K. Rowling's recent statements or most of the things she's said since the book series ended. I do, however, love these boys, and if this is a ship that JKR herself tried to sink, then that's just an added bonus.

Sirius Black sat with his back against the wooden headboard of his Gryffindor four-poster bed, curtains drawn, pretending to the other boys in his dorm that he was asleep. He could hear James and Peter whispering to each other on the other side of the room, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were probably planning some mischief or other — Filch had had it out for James more than usual in the last two weeks and, with the full moon approaching, the boys hadn’t dared do anything that might give them a detention on The Night.

But the full moon was last night and Remus was back from the Hospital Wing, left arm in a sling, a bruise on his right temple, and, unbeknownst to anyone but the four boys and Madam Pomfrey, a nasty bite mark on his left calf. Pomfrey would have assumed that it had been self-inflicted, and Remus wouldn’t have any memory either way, but Sirius knew that the wound was from his own canine maw. Peter had transformed a little late, because he always found it harder to do when he’s tired or hungry, and he was rarely not hungry, and so the Wolf had lunged at Peter and Padfoot had lunged at the Wolf. Padfoot had dragged him backwards while Prongs stuck his stupid antlers in the Wolf’s path, as if that would have prevented the six-hundred pound beast from hurting Peter. Wormy had, eventually, got the change right, of course, and the night had continued in its usual fashion.

The bruise on Remus’ temple would be gone by tomorrow morning. Pomfrey gave him an ointment for his bruises that Remus always used the next night because it was bright yellow and, while it worked a treat at getting the bruise to disappear in just an hour or three, it drew a lot more attention to the bruise while it was doing so. Remus was very fond of melting into the background most of the time, but especially in the few days following a full moon.

The sling, of course, would draw more attention to Remus than the bruise. Madam Pomfrey was a genius when it came to dislocated shoulders — over thirty years treating quidditch injuries saw to that — but her spells had never worked on Remus. He healed faster than most people but he had to do it without the aid of the occasional _Episkey_ or _Vulnera Sanentur_ spell. Luckily (though none of this felt very Lucky to Sirius) the transformation usually knitted his broken bones back together, so they’d never had to deal with the inconvenience and questions that an unhealed broken bone would bring.

Remus told Sirius once that Muggles would wrap the broken bone in a hard substance called plaster that dried like rock and just **waited** for the bone to heal on its own, which could take over a month. Sirius, who had despised waiting for five minutes for the bones in his foot to heal after a nasty fight with a Slytherin Beater at a match last year, couldn’t even imagine how anyone could wait for six weeks for a bone to heal without being driven to the depths of insanity.

Madam Pomfrey had said Remus was lucky (there was that damn word again!) that he didn’t have major cuts this time, apart from the bite marks on his leg. Without her spells, she couldn’t heal the bloody wounds instantly, which led to a lot of scars. Sirius knew that Remus hated his scars, but Sirius thought (whenever he let himself think about Remus for too long, which wasn’t often) they looked rather rugged. They were the marks of a fighter, each line told a story of another horrid thing that Remus had survived, another thing that had made him him. Remus hid the deepest scars on his face and hands under glamours each morning, before the four boys traipsed down to breakfast, en masse and boisterous, and never wore short sleeves, even in the height of summer. After they had found out that Remus was a werewolf, he’d started being less and less guarded about his scars when it was just the four of them.

The summer before last, when they’d all met up at the Potters’ (for Sirius’s only chance at sanity during the break), Remus had even taken his top off when they went swimming in the sun-drenched pond at the North corner of the Potters’ land. Sirius had had to try his best not to stare, because he knew that Remus would assume he was staring at the scars (even though he saw them every month after his de-transformation). It would have been a safe enough assumption, especially because Sirius would never have admitted that what he’d actually been staring at was his best friend’s pale and faintly muscular chest and newly broad shoulders as the first signs of puberty were beginning to show on his scrawny frame. That summer, when they’d been fifteen and stupid (stupider than now, definitely, Sirius thought. He was turning seventeen in under a month and he was far more mature now), that had been the summer that his feelings for his friend had evolved past the point of mere friendship. Gone were the days of innocently touching Remus’s shoulder or running his fingers through his hair as he passed him in the Common Room. That was when the feel of Remus’s skin had started to burn whenever he touched it, his body aware, so so aware, that this was Remus he was touching. 

He’d kept it up, the painful touching of the boy that he longed for who would never be his, because he knew Remus would take it personally if he stopped. He’d stopped touching Remus only once before, a few months after they’d all found out about his… furry little problem, the first really bad full moon since they’d known him. Remus’s right shoulder had been dislocated and almost ripped to shreds, and Sirius had been so scared of hurting him that he had pulled back a little. He’d found Remus crying in the dorm bathroom just three nights after that moon, apologising brokenly with snot running down his chin, begging for Sirius’s friendship again.

Sirius would never stop showing Remus affection, even if it killed him. Which it just might, given the way Remus’s eyes would often flutter shut when Sirius stroked his hair or how he always, always, lent into Sirius’s touch. It was almost unbearable. Almost.

Sirius touched James plenty too. They were brothers, after all, always clapping each other on the back or ruffling each other’s hair or wrestling over the last piece of Honeydukes’ chocolate (which Remus would usually snap up while they were busy fighting over it, the fiend). He had used to touch Peter a lot too, before Peter had told him that it actually made him uncomfortable. “Not, like, in a homophobic way, or anything,” He’d said, which Sirius had found odd at the time because they were thirteen and Sirius hadn’t like-liked **anyone** before. The only person he’d kissed had been Marlene McKinnon when Eliza Bingley had dared her to and it had been… fine, he supposed. Her lips had been too sweet, her long frizzy curls had tickled his nose, and she’d tasted of raspberries, which Sirius didn’t like at the best of times. (His mother had always served raspberry tarts at all of her political dinners for the Wizarding Elite — racist purebloods with more money and time than sense — which Sirius had been forced to sit through, silently hating ever single person in the room, as they not-so-silently hated Muggleborns, and Homosexuals, and anyone, Sirius thought, who was a better person than any of them could ever hope to be.)

Peter was the only one of the group who knew, the only one that Sirius had told, about his Thing for their oft-furry friend. He felt a pang of jealousy whenever James pranced around their room, loudly making plans to woo Evans, or threw himself on his bed, loudly complaining that his plans to woo Evans had failed (again). It didn’t seem fair that James could yell from the rooftops about the girl he liked (loved, according to James, but Sirius wasn’t convinced) and Sirius had to mourn his unrequited love silently with only the occasional hungover rat for company. Hungover Peter was the best listener and, somehow, gave the best advice, and, if the other two found it odd that Sirius always volunteered to rub Peter’s back as he threw up the morning after a Marauders Drinking Night, they’d never said anything.

Sirius was waiting for James and Peter’s whispers to trail off, for Peter’s soft snores to fill the room, before he pulled open the curtain on one side (the side facing away from James and Peter, of course), and crept over to the bed on his right. He knew that Moony would be awake, exhausted but not yet able to sleep. This was a long-standing tradition, going back to two months into their first year when a tiny and near-mute Remus Lupin had crept into Sirius’s bed after Sirius’s first nightmare since arriving at Hogwarts. They hadn’t yet learnt silencing charms yet and Remus had claimed in the morning (what the other three fondly remember as the day that Sarcastic Lupin was born) that he’d only done so so that Sirius would let them all get some sleep and stop making such a racket. The day after the next full moon, though Sirius hadn’t known the significance of that at the time, he’d heard Remus thrashing about in bed and had crept under the covers beside him and held him tightly until morning. Neither boy admitted out loud that it was the best night of sleep either had got in years, but the tradition persisted without them ever really needing to talk about it.

James had brought it up, once, when they were fifteen and puberty was starting to hit, that it was weird that they were still so fond of sleeping together. Peter had, of course, given Sirius a meaningful look, and agreed with James. Sirius, now adept with silencing charms, as most teenage boys on the horny end of puberty were, had been crying himself to sleep that night at the thought of spending all of his nights alone when a familiar figure clambered into his bed. Remus had held him as he cried, held him as he fell asleep, and Sirius had woken up alone. 

So that was what they did now. Sirius had charmed his muggle wristwatch (a present from Moony with the express purpose of pissing off his mother, and, therefore, one of Sirius’ favourite possessions) to vibrate on his wrist at six thirty, half an hour before their usual wake up time. It would wake him up enough that he had the wherewithal to climb out of Remus’ bed and slink back into his own. Sometimes, depending on how entangled they were, Remus would half-wake when Sirius tried to leave and Sirius would tell him to “go back to sleep” in a voice quieter than a whisper. If Remus didn’t stir when he tried to leave, Sirius would brave a kiss to the top of Remus’s golden head — always, **always** , on those soft curls, because he couldn’t dare press his lips directly to Remus’s skin. Sometimes, the corners of Remus’s mouth would quirk up in his sleep when Sirius pulled away from that kiss, heart battering against his ribcage so hard, it always amazed him that it didn’t wake the whole dorm. But it never did, and Sirius would lie awake in his own bed, listening to the other boys’ breathing and the birds singing outside the window, and wait for Remus’s official alarm to wake them all at seven. Then, he would groan loudly and stagger out of bed, pretending for all the world like he hadn’t woken up a full thirty minutes earlier.

Sirius pulled Moony’s curtain open a foot and climbed onto the mattress as gingerly as he could, not wanting to jostle Remus’s sore shoulder. Remus was lying on the left side of the bed, on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling. He didn’t glance at Sirius and Sirius wondered, not for the first time, if Remus even wanted him here or if just he didn’t want to hurt Sirius’s feelings by rejecting him. For all that Remus was a snarky git, he was one of the kindest people Sirius had ever met.

But then, Sirius was under the covers, facing him, and Remus rolled onto his right side, his good side, buried his face in Sirius’s chest, and Sirius’s doubts disappeared as he willed his heart to keep its beating under control. Remus would usually sling his left arm over Sirius’s body, trapping him in the best way he’s ever been trapped, but Sirius wasn’t surprised that it didn’t happen tonight. Sirius’s right hand crept up to Remus’s hair, oh Sirius could write sonnets about that hair, and he ran his fingers through it, again and again, until Remus’s breathing slowed. They never talked. There was nothing to talk about. They both knew everything (almost everything, Sirius’s traitorous mind reminded him) about each other. There was no platitude that Sirius could give that Remus hadn’t heard a thousand times before, no magic words that would make him feel better. All he could do was hold Remus until he felt human again. It was always easier to fall asleep like this, Remus’s quiet smell of chocolate, old books, and some indescribable musky scent filling his nostrils, Remus’s gentle curls against his palm, Remus’s breath warming a patch on Sirius’s chest, right above his heart. Before he knew it, Sirius’s eyes were drooping and his own breath was slowing too.

***

The buzzing on his wrist woke Sirius from an odd dream. He’d been back at Grimmauld Place, browsing the books in a section of the library that his mother would never let him near, and he’d been… in his thirties, maybe, tired and thin. Then Remus had come in, which should have been a shock to him (Remus, a half-blood werewolf, in his mother’s house?), and asked him if he’d slept ok. He looked different too, older, weary. He hadn’t glamoured away his scars, and the ones that Sirius knew so well had been joined by a dozen new ones, all crisscrossing his gaunt face. Sirius had felt a sort of rage he'd only ever felt directed at his parents at this version of himself, a man that had let Remus hurt himself so much, probably over a span of years. Where had he been? What could possibly have been more important that stopping the love of his life from ripping himself to shreds on a monthly basis? 

The fuzzy memory of the dream washed over him as he tapped his watch three times with his ring finger to stop the buzzing. He looked down at Remus’s sleeping face. His mouth was open slightly and there was bit of drool on Sirius’s red pyjama top.

‘ _I’ll never leave you like he did_ ,’ Sirius thought fiercely. He pulled back the arm that had slipped down Remus’s side as they slept and tried to pull his legs out of the pile of limbs beneath the duvet. Remus’s legs were like octopus tentacles while he slept, Sirius had no idea how Remus managed to wrap his legs so tightly around his own with so few joints — sure he must sprout a few more knees in each leg in order to entwine Sirius so completely. Leg extraction was a slow process. Moony still had purple bags under his eyes, and so Sirius was even more loathe to wake him than usual. He tried not to think about sneaking into Remus’s bed again tonight and every night until those bags were gone; he couldn’t get ahead of himself. With his right leg free, Sirius rolled, slowly, onto his back and began the process of extracting the left. Remus still hadn’t stirred after Sirius had fully freed himself, so Sirius rolled over towards him once more and pressed a longer-than-he-could-ever-pretend-was-platonic kiss to the hair above Remus’s temple. 

He began to sit up, slowly to be as gentle as possible, and then he glanced down at Remus one last time and his blood turned to ice. Remus’s eyes were open, looking at Sirius with tired confusion. He must have seen Sirius’s deer-in-the-headlights expression because he whispered, “Stay, Siri.” Remus only used that name on the really bad nights, the nights when Sirius woke up screaming from the memories of his mother’s Cruciatus curses, or when he was afraid Sirius would hurt himself. Remus was the only person allowed to call him that, and it usually gave him a warm feeling in his chest that somehow helped with everything that was going on.

It didn’t make him feel warm this morning. His heart somehow turned even colder as the panic in his chest took on a life of its own, growing exponentially and writhing until Sirius was certain he was going to throw up. He didn’t go back to his own bed. There was no way he’d be able to lie still for half an hour after that. He bolted from the dorm, still barefoot, still in his Gryffindor pyjamas (with one wet patch over his heart), ran through the common room, getting concerned looks from a few of the house’s early rises (how anyone had the commitment to study **before** classes, Sirius would never know), and out the portrait door.

He ran along the dark corridor, the slap of his feet against the stone slabs pounding in his ears. The October sun didn’t rise until after seven this far north, and the school was so quiet that it felt like midnight, like Filch was going to round any corner and give him a detention for being out of bed after hours. No Filch or cat crossed his path, no ghosts or other students either. He got a few more odd glances from the occasional portrait but none of them said a word. 

He didn’t stop running until he reached the bottom of the stairs up to the astronomy tower. His feet ached and lungs burned but he only stopped for a moment to catch his breath before he started up the long winding staircase. He was almost crying (purely from the exertion, he told himself) by the time he got to the halfway point but he wouldn’t let himself stop. He kept putting one foot in front of the other while his lungs screamed at him and his calves felt like they were being stabbed with every step he took. He kept climbing, climbing, climbing, with a determination he didn’t usually feel about anything. It helped to imagine that all of his problems, all of his gay fucking feelings for his best fucking friend, were at the bottom of the staircase and each aching step took him six inches further from them.

There were tears running down his face by the time he reached the top and he wasn’t even sure what exactly it was that was making him cry. He sat down near the window that overlooked the Forbidden Forest and, off in the distance, Hogsmeade, a little trail of tired houses and shops barely visible in the near-dawn light. He sat close enough to see the world laid out below him like a map or a painting, but far enough away that he wouldn’t be tempted just to… fall. He didn’t… want to die. No, of course not. It just felt, in this moment, that it might be easier to be not here. He could hear his mother’s voice cutting through his thoughts, urging him to jump because he was just a useless fag and nobody would miss him, really. And it felt harder to block her out than it usually was.

Peter would miss him. Even if Remus never spoke to him again, even if he told James and James was disgusted and kicked him out of his new home with the Potters, Peter had known for years and liked him just the same.

But imagining a life without Remus or James brought fresh tears to his eyes. He’d never talked about homosexuality with James, even in the abstract, and, while it was hard to imagine his best friend being prejudiced in a way that Sirius’s own family was, Sirius couldn’t help but think back to when they’d all found out about Remus. Sirius and Peter had been on board immediately, Peter because he was kind and reliable, and Sirius because being friends with a werewolf seemed a delightful way to spite his awful mother (he’d since realised what a selfish reason it had been, and had told Remus about it once, and, whatever reaction he’d been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been Remus laughing until he cried and gasped for breath). James, however, took a little longer to be ok with it. It wasn’t until Remus’s first transformation after they’d found out, when Peter and Sirius had all but dragged James to the Hospital Wing to visit him, that James realised that Remus was far more a danger to himself than the other boys and their friendship had started to heal.

Sirius could feel his watch, heavy on his wrist, a physical reminder of everything Remus had done for him. How was he supposed to not fall in love with him? How could he know this boy, who drooled in his sleep, who made Sirius laugh more than anyone, who made Sirius feel at home in his arms, and not love him for the rest of his life? The thought of losing Remus because of his stupid heart being all stupid and gay, that was too much to bear on its own. He could have lived his whole life (almost) perfectly content with being Remus’s friend. That was (almost) enough. But he’d gone and ruined everything by pushing, always pushing.

The sun was beginning to rise and the windows of Hogmeade’s smattering of east-facing buildings glowed golden in the morning light. A quick glance at his watch told him it was ten past seven — James and Peter would be awake now, stumbling around their room in a sleep-drunk stupor, fighting over whose tie was whose. The curtains around Sirius’s bed would still be drawn and he wondered if they’d have even noticed he was gone. Would Remus tell them that he was gone? Would he tell them the truth or made up some fanciful lie on the spot? Remus was very good at lying on the spot, which was the only reason that he had half the detentions the other three had under their belts and why he’d been picked for prefect this year and last — he played the innocent boy with rowdy friends so well that even Sirius believed it sometimes.

A few minutes passed while Sirius tried to imagine what was going on on the other side of the castle, wishing that today had been a normal morning and he had pretended to wake up at seven and was currently brushing his teeth while Remus shaved in the same mirror (the only one of the four of them who had to shave at all, even if it was only twice a week, Remus said it was probably a Wolf Thing). Sirius always made increasingly stupid faces in the mirror in an attempt to get Remus to laugh, which rarely worked and often ended in Remus elbowing him in the side with an exasperated “Padfoot!” but Sirius never missed the fond twinkle in his eye as he did so. Then, Sirius would lean around him, spit in the sink, and ruffle Remus’s freshly brushed hair before heading back into the dorm room to get dressed. The memories of their cosy mornings made Sirius’s heart ache.

Seven thirty drew nearer and by now James and Peter would definitely know that he was gone and Remus would definitely have made up some genius lie to cover for him and the three of them would be on their way to breakfast without him. Sirius thought briefly about sneaking to the kitchens for breakfast on his own, but the idea of chewing and swallowing food made him want to throw up. Instead, he people-watched. The people walking along the Hogsmeade main street were little more than dots from this far away but Sirius tried to give each little dot a happy life — that one dot in red was Thomas the baker who liked to get some fresh air while he waited for his dough to rise, the two walking together were best friends from childhood, Millie and Claire, and Claire was secretly in love with Millie and would never tell her because…

Ok, maybe this wasn’t a good distraction.

He had never tried so hard not to think about Remus before, and so, of course, his best friend was the only person on his mind. The Forbidden Forest reminded him of the full moon escapades. Hogsmeade reminded him of their free weekends, swaggering about the town, all four boys linked arm in arm, laughing about something or other. The rising sun reminded him of waking up in Remus’s arms with sunlight peeping through the curtains.

It was hopeless.

Sirius lay back on the stone floor of the astronomy tower and watched the magical planetarium on the tower room ceiling. He spotted his own namesake in the sky and stared at it for a while, trying to empty his mind and focus on nothing but the false stars above him. 

Sirius only remembered the existence of the Marauders’ Map when he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him. He sat up with a jolt. If he'd wanted to escape from his friends, there was only one room in the school that would ensure they couldn't find him, and it certainly wasn't the astronomy tower.

He braced himself for James's questions or for Peter's knowing (pitying) stare, and almost jumped out of his skin when Remus sat down beside him.

His heart was beating out of his chest again, and he glanced at the door to the stairs, wondering if he could run and if he could get to the Room of Requirement before Remus could stop him. But Remus put his hand on Sirius's arm for just a second and it was over.

Sirius braced himself for a goodbye that never came. He was ready for accusations, curses, filthy slurs. But he looked into Remus's eyes and those worries faded away. How could he have thought that Remus would treat him like that? The guilt of his assumption that Remus would ever treat him like his mother brought tears to his eyes and he quickly looked away, back out the huge window to the Forbidden Forest far below them.

"I'm sorry," He said, not quite sure what he was apologising for.

Remus clearly wasn't sure either. "For what, Sirius?"

There was a long silence. Sirius couldn't tear his eyes from the Forest.

Two minutes or more must have passed before he felt a hand cover his own. He flinched.

"Sirius," Remus said, voice as thick with tears as Sirius's own throat felt. "Siri, please."

"I —," Sirius tried to start but couldn't, choking on his words. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I don’t know what you want me to say.” It wasn’t really a lie. Sirius was pretty sure that the **truth** was not something that Remus wanted to hear.

“Why did you run?” Remus’s voice was so quiet Sirius wasn’t quite sure he’d heard it right.

“I don’t know.” This was a lie.

“Was it because you kissed me? Because… It wasn’t anything to freak out about, Sirius. It was just a kiss. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Sirius wasn’t sure if he was crying from the heartbreak or the relief at those words. It was ‘just a kiss’. He was being given an out and he desperately, **desperately** , wanted to take it. He brushed away the tears on his cheeks and cleared his throat, again.

“It didn’t. I just needed some air.” 

“Ok.”

Remus knew he was lying, Sirius was sure of that, but he knew Remus would never pry, would never push him too hard.

“How’s your leg?”

“Much better now, actually. Got up those stairs almost no problem.” Remus sounded reasonably cheery but Sirius winced.

“You didn’t have to come looking for me.”

“Of course I did, idiot. If I’d sent either of the others up here with your breakfast, they’d probably have eaten it on the way.” It was then that Sirius looked at Remus for long enough to notice the plate of scrambled eggs on toast in his hand.

“’m not hungry.”

“Don’t rightly care. Will you eat it for me?”

Sirius took the plate and took a tentative bite. Remus had managed to season it perfectly because of course Remus knew how Sirius took his eggs. The second he swallowed his first mouthful, he suddenly realised that he was ravenous, and started shovelling eggs into his mouth.

“Thanks,” He said, mouth full.

Remus simply rolled his eyes. “Say it, don’t spray it, prat. What would your mother say?”

“She’d call me a pitiful faggot, probably.” The words were out of Sirius’s mouth before he could stop them but he didn’t even consider running this time. He was never going to be ready to be honest with Remus about how he felt, so why not now?

“Sirius, I…” Now, it seemed like Remus was the one who was at a loss for words. “Are you?”

“Gay?” Sirius asked, spraying a few toast crumbs onto the windowsill in front of them. “Reckon so. Is that a problem?”

Remus laughed. Actually laughed, the bastard. “Of course not, Sirius. Would be a little hypocritical of me, don’t you think?”

“Right, because of the werewolf thing.” That made a certain amount of sense, solidarity in oppression or whatever.

“No, Padfoot,” Remus inhaled deeply. “Because I’m gay too. Thought you knew that.”

It was Sirius who laughed now. “Why would I know that?”

“Because James knows and when he says he’ll keep something secret, it means he’ll tell you and no one else.”

“James didn’t say anything to me.”

A silence fell between them, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. The sky turned bluer and bluer before their eyes.

“I thought you were asleep.” Sirius said, after swallowing the last bit of toast.

“Yeah, I’d put that together for myself, actually. Why… Why did you do it at all?”

“Can’t help myself sometimes. Usually doesn’t go on that long. I swear, I’m not molesting you in your sleep.”

“Usually?”

He had said that, hadn’t he? Remus hadn’t realised that this wasn’t just a one-off thing and Sirius had just gone and admitted it.

“It’s not every morning.”

“Just the mornings you think I’m too fast asleep to notice?”

A gust of wind whistled through the tower room and Sirius shivered, suddenly very aware of his thin pyjamas and bare feet.

“Oh, I forgot.” Remus reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out a pair of woolly socks, one of Remus’s pairs that unofficially belonged to Sirius because he stole them so often the House Elves often got confused who owned them when returning their laundry. These ones were his favourite, and it wasn't a surprise to Sirius that unbearably-perfect Remus would know that. They were the softest of all of the pairs Sirius regularly stole and they were a rich purple with little black dogs all over them. Sirius took them and put them on his feet and felt instantly better.

“Thanks. I’m sorry, really.”

“Do you know what for this time?” Remus teased.

“For kissing you.”

“Oh.”

Sirius frowned. “Is that not what you wanted me to apologise for?”

“I want you to tell me why, Siri.” There was an edge of pleading in Remus’s voice.

“You look kissable.”

“In my sleep, you mean?”

' _No_ ,' Sirius thought, ' _all the time. Right the fuck now, actually, with your damn windswept hair and your stupid sad little smile._ '

“Sure,” He said out loud.

“I don’t think it’s very fair.” This took Sirius a little by surprise.

“What isn’t?”

“Well, you’ve kissed me maybe a hundred times, and I’ve never even kissed you once.” Remus’s face was bright pink and his voice was gaspy by the end of the sentence like he’d gone far too long without inhaling in his desperation to get all of the words out.

“Do you want to kiss me?” Sirius’s own voice was gaspy too and he was sure he’d have found it in himself to be embarrassed if his veins weren’t coursing with adrenaline right now.

“I always want to kiss you.” The words were barely a whisper but Sirius heard them loud as a bell.

“Then kiss me.”

Remus finally turned to face him and Sirius felt that hand on his own again and then Remus’s eyes fluttered shut and they were both leaning in and…

If Sirius had any remaining doubts that he was gay, they all vanished the second his lips touched Remus’s. The kiss was short and chaste and yet both boys broke away panting, pupils blown wild. Almost before he’d got his breath back, Sirius, just because he could, leaned in and pressed him lips to Remus’s again, just for another second. As he pulled away a second time, Remus’s face split into a cheeky grin.

“Better than when I’m asleep, is it?”

Sirius barked out a loud laugh, the sound echoing around them before it disappeared on the wind. “Sure, but you’re less of a git when you’re asleep, so it balances out.”

Remus leaned in and placed a kiss on the ice cold tip of Sirius’s nose. As he pulled away again, Sirius followed him with his own face and rested his forehead against Remus’s, their noses almost touching.

“I can’t fall asleep without you anymore,” He breathed, “Maybe I’m being a little presumptuous but I never want to fall asleep without you again.”

Remus’s hand tightened around his own. “I like it when you’re presumptuous.”

There was nothing else for it. “I love you.”

Even though he was fairly sure his feelings were returned, Sirius’s heart was still thundering in the silence that followed. It can’t have been more than a few seconds but it stretched out like an eternity.

“I love you too.” The hand was gone from his own, and was suddenly tangled in his long unbrushed hair as Remus pulled him into another kiss, far less chaste than the ones preceding it.

***

They walked back to the Gryffindor tower side by side. Every time Remus’s hand brushed against his, Sirius felt a jolt of electricity run up his arm and through his whole body. He didn’t dare to look at Remus in case anyone in the corridors spotted them and somehow knew what they were up to.

The first class of the day had started almost half an hour ago, so it hadn’t taken much convincing to get Remus to skive off and come back to the dorm with him to get dressed (“And just get dressed, Moons, I promise! I’ll deliver you to McGonagall’s room at ten A.M. sharp, virginity intact.” Remus had laughed and half-heartedly slapped his arm at that). The Gryffindor common room was empty when they reached it but the boys didn’t stop on their way to their dorm.

They got to the room and Remus pushed the door closed behind them and leant against it. They made eye contact for the first time since the tower and suddenly they were both laughing. Sirius pressed his chest to Remus’s, loving how Remus had to stand up on his toes to make their noses touch. His hands gripped Remus’s hips and he leant in closer until they were kissing again, bodies pressed together from noses to knees.

They broke apart for air. Remus tucked his head into Sirius’s neck and pressed a chaste kiss there while he panted. Sirius groaned, not quite meaning to, and Remus chuckled breathlessly and kissed his neck again. Sirius felt a familiar tightness in his pyjama trousers and pulled away from Remus, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

“Keep doing that, and I’ll have to break my promise of getting you to Transfiguration by ten.”

“Transfiguration’s overrated,” Remus said with a smirk, but he pressed a kiss to Sirius’s cheek as he brushed past him and sat on his own bed. The bed where, less than two hours ago, Sirius had kissed Remus’s forehead and started this whole ball in motion.

Sirius went to his own trunk and rooted through it for his uniform. He retrieved everything except his tie, which was, strangely, absent.

“James and Peter had another fight about their ties this morning. They could only find one of them and they were both convinced it was theirs so eventually Peter just took yours,” Remus said.

“Accio James’s tie,” Sirius said, and watched as the red and gold scrap of silk flew down from on top of James’s four poster into his waiting hand. He glanced at Remus. “It’s always James’s tie that’s missing.”

“How did he managed to get it up there without remembering?”

Sirius laughed. “I have no idea, I don’t tend to pay attention when my friends undress.”

“You pay attention when I undress.”

“An exception to the rule, dear Moony,” Sirius covered the distance between them in two strides and kissed Remus’s forehead, just because he could. “I’m surprised you noticed, I’m very subtle.”

“You’re as subtle as a Erumpent, Pads, and we all know it.”

“You never said anything.”

“I always thought it was because of my scars.”

Sirius cupped Remus’s chin in his hand and gently tilted his head upwards. “I never wanted to make you uncomfortable, but it’s hard not to look at you when you’re such a sexy hunk.”

Remus laughed so hard that he sneezed.

“No one’s every described me as ‘sexy’ before.”

“You’re talking to the wrong people, then.”

“I know, I’m talking to you.”

Sirius flicked him on the nose and turned back to his own bed to start getting into his uniform. “You’re rude. I don’t think boyfriends should be rude, I might ask for a refund.”

Remus’s breath hitched. “Boyfriend?”

Sirius glanced at him. “I mean, I love you and you love me, do you not want to…?” The unfinished question hung in the air as Sirius fixed his gaze pointedly on the Hogwarts crest on the jumper laid out on his bed.

“No! No, I do. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

Sirius didn’t say anything. He heard the springs of Remus’s bed creak and soft footsteps padding over to him. Remus’s hand slipped into his own. “I’d love to be your boyfriend, Sirius. It’s just hard to believe this is happening, in the best way. Last night, I was resigned to pining after you forever and now… You’re my boyfriend.” Remus was smiling a little, like he enjoyed how the word felt on his tongue. Sirius enjoyed how the word felt on his ears too, wrapped up in Remus’s Welsh lilt.

“Say it again.”

Remus grinned. “You’re my boyfriend.” He rested his head on Sirius’s shoulder. “You’re my boyfriend. Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend. Is that enough for you, boyfriend, or do you need me to say it some more?”

“That’s enough for now. I’ll probably need to hear it again in an hour or so, though. Now, piss off and let me get dressed.”

“You told me to come back here with you!” Remus was trying his best to sound affronted but Sirius could hear the grin in his voice.

“Well, I’m finished having my wicked way with you and now you’re just a distraction.”

“Fine. I’ll read Ancient Runes to start catching up on what I’m missing right now because **someone** thought kissing was more important than our education.”

“Why do I love you? You’re such a bloody nerd.” Sirius pulled his pyjama top over his head and started buttoning up his white shirt.

“Not all of us can get straight O’s without lifting a finger, Padfoot.”

“Nothing about me is ‘straight’, darling Moony. I do get mostly E’s in Transfiguration, but that’s because Minnie is just making sure she doesn’t get accused of playing favourites.”

“I’m sure that’s what it is.”

Sirius heard the telltale noise of a book opening in Remus’s direction and he knew he’d lost him for the next twenty minutes. He put on the rest of his uniform and brushed his teeth in their little en-suite. He grabbed a dollop of James’s Sleekeazy and ran it though his hair with Peter’s hairbrush, Merlin only knew where Sirius’s had run off to. He emerged from the bathroom feeling far more himself.

“Moons, I’ve brushed my teeth so you have to kiss me again.”

Remus didn’t even look up from his book. “Who came up with that rule?”

“Me,” Sirius said with a pout, and then, just to see if it changed anything, he added, “Your boyfriend.”

Remus’s eyes met his, a faint blush dusting his cheeks pink. “Let me finish this page.”

***

They were late for Transfiguration. Only by two minutes, but Minnie glared at Sirius, as if he’d been the one who kept dragging Remus back for more minty-fresh kisses and not the other way around. Sirius wasn’t going to complain, though, he’d rather get in trouble than his Moony any day.

James and Peter were sitting at the back, each with an empty seat beside them, each giving them inscrutable looks. Sirius took the seat beside James at the very back of the room and Remus slid in next to Peter. Minnie resumed the class and Sirius tried to pay attention to what she was saying and not to the back of Moony’s head.

James tapped on his elbow and slid a piece of paper across the desk to him.

‘What happened this morning? Did you get an owl from Grimmauld? Remus was pretty vague.’

‘I just needed some alone time. Everything’s fine.’

‘If you say so. You know I’m here, right?’

Sirius smiled at his best friend’s response.

‘I know. We’ll talk later.’

That seemed to satisfy James’s worries, because Sirius didn’t receive a response. He spent the rest of the class trying to pay attention to Minnie and resist the urge to run his fingers through Remus’s hair.

James kept throwing him expectant looks all day, like he wanted to ask again but, thankfully, he held his tongue.

That evening, all four boys clambered into their dorm room and James and Peter immediately sat down on their own beds. Sirius climbed on top of his own duvet, leaving a deliberate space on his left, and sat with his back against the headboard. He met Remus’s gaze, his boyfriend (boyfriend!) still standing by the door as if he wasn’t quite sure where to go. Remus grinned at him, climbed onto Sirius’s bed and settled against his side. It felt natural to Sirius, having him there. Merlin, Sirius never wanted to let him go.

Sirius looked up at their two roommates. Peter had a small incredulous smile on his face and James looked like his wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

“I’m glad you finally said something, Sirius,” Peter said. “I told you it’d be ok.”

“Sirius didn’t say anything willingly, Peter, I had to corner him and drag it out of him,” Remus stretched up to press a kiss to Sirius’s jawbone.

“I’ve been listening to this git complain about you for years. You have no idea how annoying it’s been. He’s all ‘Moony’s hair this’ and ‘Moony’s arse that’ any time it’s just the two of us.”

“You talk to Peter about my arse, babe?” Sirius, face starting to match the curtains around his bed, buried his head against Remus’s shoulder, a feat which involved him schooching down the bed and getting his robes tangled in his own legs.

“Babe?” It was the first thing James had said since they’d got back to the room.

There was short silence, Sirius didn’t want to be the one to explain, he wasn’t even sure where to start. He turned his head slightly, so that he could see James out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t speak.

Remus cleared his throat. “Do you remember what I told you when we were in fourth year, Prongs? The thing I asked you to never tell anyone else?”

“Hey! I didn’t tell anyone, I swear!”

“I know. But you asked me how I knew, and I didn’t tell you.” Remus’s un-slinged arm was wrapped around Sirius, the fingers in his hair rubbing small circles into his scalp. “I thought if you knew that I had a crush on Sirius, you’d tell him.”

“I wouldn’t.” James seemed almost offended at the idea. He looked between Sirius and Remus. “Wait, did you mean to tell me that in front of Sirius?”

Peter had clearly had enough of tiptoeing around it. “Oh sweet Merlin, James, they’re gay for each other.”

Sirius snorted. “Not how eloquently I would have put it, Wormy. But yes, since you don’t seem to be figuring it out on your own, Jamie, Remus and I have embarked on a romantic relationship with one another.”

“You say the ponciest things sometimes,” Remus teased, fingers still massaging Sirius’s scalp.

“You had a crush on me.” Sirius pointed out quietly, warmth spreading out from his chest at the words.

“Still do,” Remus whispered back. “And yet you’re still a ponce.”

“Do you two need us to come back later?” Peter asked.

Remus groaned and the fingers pulled out of Sirius’s hair, who almost whimpered at the loss of contact. “No, no, I have homework to do before dinner since I’m patrolling after.”

“You can’t patrol, you only have one arm!” Sirius protested weakly.

“It’s bad enough that McGonagall has to change the schedule for me in secret for one day a month, I can’t start asking for more days off.”

“I’ll ask her, then, Minnie loves me. I’ll tell her that you have a boyfriend now, you can’t concern yourself with such petty matters as school night patrols. She’ll understand.”

“Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking or not and it scares me.”

“You should know by now that I’m always Sirius.” The name pun was low-hanging fruit, but Sirius wasn’t above that.

Remus rolled his eyes, sat up and accio’d his Ancient Runes book over, grabbing it from the air half a second before it hit Sirius in the face.

Sirius noticed that James was watching them intently. He’d barely contributed to their previous conversation and Sirius still wasn’t sure where he stood on this whole thing. “Is this ok, Prongs?” He tried his best to keep the note of fear out of his voice but the feel of Remus’s hand suddenly on his knee told him that he hadn’t been successful.

“Do you need my permission?” The corner of James’s mouth quirked up and Sirius instantly felt a million times better.

“’Course not, you dick, I just…” How did you explain to one of the most important people in the world to you that their approval of your relationship was important, even if it wasn’t necessary? Ever since Sirius had shown up on the Potters’ doorstep, drenched to the bone, one stormy night this past June, and had been hugged, fed, and nursed through the cold he’d evidently caught that night, the Potters were pretty much the only family Sirius had. Sirius needed James like he needed his left leg. A left leg that might disapprove of him being with the person he loved.

“I love Remus, and I love you. Why wouldn’t I be happy to see you happy together?”

A weight lifted off Sirius’s chest so suddenly that he leapt off his own bed (not noticing how he almost knocked Remus off the other side in his haste), and threw himself onto James in a full-body bear hug. James yelped and then he was laughing and tackling Sirius onto the floor where they play-wrestled, knocking over one of the piles of books around Remus’s bed.

He heard Remus groan as the books clunked to the floor. Sirius wriggled out of James’s grip, planted a wet kiss on his cheek and wordlessly waved his wand at the books to fix them back into the neat-ish pile they’d been in before. He sat on the bed beside Remus and tucked himself in close, closing his eyes and letting Remus’s soft smell wash over him.  
James, still lying on the floor, chuckled. “You’re whipped already, Padfoot.”

Sirius threw a tickling charm at him without looking up and heard Peter yelp from the far side of the room. James howled with laughter. Sirius could practically feel Remus roll his eyes next to him. 

Eventually, the room quietened down. Peter recovered from the tickling charm and started crafting a letter home (to his “muggle girlfriend” from his hometown in Yorkshire that none of the others had ever met). James got off the floor and started working on his Charms essay. Sirius summoned his potions book and the four of them read and wrote in silence apart from the scratch of their quills until dinner, almost an hour later. Then, the four boys traipsed down to the Great Hall, Sirius’s long fingers entwined in Remus’s — they held hands a lot so not that many people would assume they were romantically involved all of a sudden. Sirius didn’t particularly want to keep their relationship quiet, but he wasn’t in a rush to tell random schoolmates, not when their relationship was so fresh. Give it a few weeks, Sirius thought, and he’d probably be snogging Remus at breakfast in front of everyone. But for right now, this thing was just theirs (with James and Peter too, he supposed, but they barely counted as their own people, the Marauders’ lives were so enmeshed). 

Sirius sat next to Remus in the Great Hall, as they did almost every night, but this time, even though they both seemed to be acting relatively normally to anyone watching, their knees stayed touching throughout the whole meal.

***

The next morning, Sirius’s watch vibrated at six thirty. He groaned. How had he forgotten to turn it off last night? Oh, right, after Remus had returned from his prefect patrol, at half past nine, James and Peter had made a stupid excuse to go to the common room. And Sirius and Remus had been… alone. He’d fallen asleep just after eleven pm, a time he would have scoffed at even a week ago, snuggled under Remus’s thick duvet, the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes Remus’s fond smile. He tapped his watch to stop the buzzing and snuggled closer to Remus. Ever since he’d first transformed into Padfoot, a little over a year ago, his sense of smell had been heightened, and he’d never truly appreciated it until now, until his nose was buried in the crook of Remus’s neck and his scent swirled around Sirius, making him dizzy, not just with lust but, god it sounded stupid even in Sirius’s own head, but he was. He was dizzy with love. So in love with Remus and in love with Remus being in love with him, that he could hardly think straight.

“You’re thinking too loudly, you prick. I’ll kick you off the bed,” a Very Grumpy Remus muttered at him, voice still rough with sleep.

“You wouldn’t,” Sirius breathed back, very aware that their silencing charms from the night before have definitely worn off by now. He didn’t want to wake the others, more so he could be alone with Remus a little longer than for their own benefits. “You love me.”

“Not that much.” But Remus’s lips had quirked up at one corner and Sirius knew it was a lie.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Barely hurts. Should be able for some vigorous hand-related activities in a few days.”

Sirius blushed. He knew that Peter and James had left them alone in the room so they could have sex or whatever, but they hadn’t. They’d kissed a lot, sure, and Sirius had almost come in his pants like a sodding virgin (even though he was, technically. For all that he talked a big game, Sirius had been so smitten with his Moony for so long that the thought of being with anyone else had felt wrong, unfair to himself and to them). But Remus’s shoulder had started to hurt and, even though he tried to soldier through, Sirius had noticed and they’d spent the rest of the evening cuddling and talking in whispers before drifting off to sleep together. Sirius didn’t mind. They had plenty of time to explore each others’ bodies after all; the rest of their lives, if he had any say in the matter.

They lay together in silence for the next twenty minutes, just basking in each others’ presence before the main morning alarm rang out and James and Peter began to stir. Then, Remus tried to pull away, to get out of the bed, but Sirius held onto him tightly, not quite ready to burst their love-bubble just yet. Remus looked torn for a second before he settled back down into Sirius’s waiting arms. They could be late for breakfast, or even miss it entirely, Sirius didn’t care.

He heard James gigantic oaf-feet hit the floor and heard him groan in his morning-stretch-and-grumble sort of way. The curtains around Remus’s bed were only pulled halfway, James could probably see them both together there.

“Morning, lovebirds,” He trilled, routing around in his trunk, probably for a clean towel and pair of underwear. “You know, it’s pretty gay, cuddling like that.” His tone was teasing, but Sirius felt a twinge of shame, deep in his chest (not for being gay, or for being seen with Remus, nothing quite so simple, but it was a deep-rooted shame, the kind that can only be felt after years of abuse and toxic parenting, and years more trying to unlearn it). It was the kind of shame that he’d have to deal with, at some point, probably with a professional, but for right now, he simply pushed the feeling down and let Remus’s smile keep him tethered to the real world.

“Yeah,” Sirius said, his grey eyes meeting Remus’s golden ones. “Yeah, it’s pretty gay.”

He was pretty sure James ‘aww’-ed when their lips met, but he had more important things to focus on right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a Kudos or Comment if you liked this, I'll love you forever if you do <3  
> Check out my tumblr ([stars-and-wolves](stars-and-wolves.tumblr.com)) for mostly wolfstar reblogs.


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